ConcertPulse
Gewandhausorchester, Pablo Heras-Casado Dirigent
Gewandhaus Leipzig, Großer Saal (Leipzig)
Konzerteinführung mit Ann-Katrin Zimmermann um 18.45 Uhr - Schumann-Eck
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Konzerteinführung mit Ann-Katrin Zimmermann um 18.45 Uhr - Schumann-Eck
Grosse Concerte Gewandhausorchester, Pablo Heras-Casado Dirigent.
The first chamber music evening at the Laeiszhalle sets the standard for the season. It sees five musicians, each with impressive solo careers in their own right, come together to celebrate their mutual love of making music in an intimate setting. They have just recorded a Schumann album with an almost identical line-up, hailed by The Guardian as »by any standards chamber music playing of the highest class.« Now Isabelle Faust, Anne Katharina Schreiber, Antoine Tamestit, Christian Poltéra and Jean-Guihen Queyras host a veritable »Schubertiade«, as Franz Schubert himself and his contemporaries used to call music parties with friends where his works were performed. The programme also features two late works by the composer that the music world still holds in deep affection: Schubert wrote his String Quartet in G major after witnessing the premiere of a Beethoven quartet (Op. 130) in 1826. For the first few months after hearing it, he was so impressed by the work of his great idol that he couldn’t bring himself to put pen to paper. Then, in just eleven days, he wrote a string quartet that broke brand new ground for the listening public, with its multiple shifts between major and minor keys, its sharp contrasts, and prevalence of sounds rather than melodies. Two years later, just a few months before his death, Schubert wrote his Quintet in C major, an entrancing »swan song« that foreshadows the afterlife. Two cellos provide a dark tonal palette, while the slow, mysterious passages render all sense of time void, and even the fast movements fluctuate between an energy filled with forward motion and an introspective cessation. Both works were only published and premiered a few years after Schubert’s early death – yet in spite of this, the musical language they speak had lost none of its radicalism.
Antoine Tamestit is one of the few real viola stars. The French string player, in his mid-forties, impresses audiences and listeners with his sense of colour, virtuosity and versatility. He demonstrates all of this at the start of his residency when he joins the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra as a soloist.
Antoine Tamestit is one of the few real viola stars. The French string player, in his mid-forties, impresses audiences and listeners with his sense of colour, virtuosity and versatility. He demonstrates all of this at the start of his residency when he joins the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra as a soloist.
Somber thoughts centering on death’s finality form the core of Iannis Xenakis’ Aïs: the wind instruments’ highly expressive sounds in the very first bars decidedly establish the overall emotional atmosphere, which subsequently materializes in Odysseus’ agonizing encounter with his deceased mother. Xenakis’ stirring ombra scene was commissioned by musica viva of the Bayerischer Rundfunk in 1980, and will now be performed once again by baritone Georg Nigl with François-Xavier Roth conducting. Additionally, Antoine Tamestit will perform the solo part in the world premiere of Francesco Filidei’s new Viola Concerto. The concert will also feature Elizabeth Ogonek, a New York-based composer whose iridescent sound frescoes have been described by the Chicago Tribune as “shimmering” and “dramatic.”
